Forums

Vassar Topic

We had a team that, on paper, was slightly more talented than our season 20 NT finalists and season 21 NT champs. And we played most of the season that way, rolling to a 10-0 mark against a very strong non-conference schedule and finishing 30-3. St. John Fisher gave us a lot of trouble this season, taking two of three games including the CT finals. SJFC is coached by tomcecil; unfortunately he remained the only other human coach in the E8 this season, but fortunately he's a very good coach and plans to stick around for a while.

Our NT run began with three dominant wins, but ended in the elite eight with a 53-37 loss to CMS. (CMS stands for "Claremont-Mudd-Scripps", the combined athletic effort of three of the Claremont Colleges, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, and Scripps. IRL their uniforms say "CMS". Why whatif calls them CMHMS escapes me.) aejones has built CMS into a D3 powerhouse that will be even stronger next season, as this season's team will lose no one to graduation.

The quarterfinal game itself was pretty ugly, as CMS shot 30% to 27% (and 12.5% from three) for Vassar. We forced 25 turnovers and still lost - mainly because CMS outrebounded us 45-32 and forced 18 TO's of their own. CMS held its first five NT opponents to an average of 47 points in a dominating run, before losing to undefeated national champion Linfield.

Next season's prospects for Vassar are good. We will lose D3's all-time leading scorer (Smith) to graduation, but have strong candidates to replace him. We also lose Vassar's third-leading career rebounder in Richardson, but again the bench is deep.

As against this, several D3 teams that were strong this season lose few if any players to graduation. I already mentioned CMS; among others, expect UC Santa Cruz, Ramapo, Marian, Chestnut Hill, Becker, Swarthmore, Penn State Berks, and Texas Dallas to be serious contenders. I'm sure there are others; these are just the ones I was looking at during the season for one reason or another.

The only thing for this season will be to post senior profiles for Richardson and Smith once the seasons turn over (tonight I think). Smith is by far the career scoring leader in D3, having broken his cousin and Vassar grad Ronald Smith's record, but he won't keep it for long if Swarthmore's coach stays there and continues his current game plan on offense.

hey this is Swarthmore's coach....I think this year will be tough, i lose my 2 big rebounders and will have 2 frosh playing huge minutes down low. but hopefully my 2 shooters can improve their 3pt% just slightly to cover for some loss of rebounds

Charles Smith's graduation demands a little special attention. I would be interested to know if any other player in this world's history made first team All-American four times. Charlie Smith was no joke.

He broke the D3 career scoring record by 592 points, besting our '18 grad Ronald Smith. Of course, this is largely a product of our offensive system, which gave CSmith between 20 and 50 percent of our distro in nearly every game he played. (We were a little thin to begin his frosh year, so he was shooting right away.) The truth is that he was an above average D3 scoring guard who benefited greatly from the system he was in.

But he was a little more than that. He averaged 27 points as a freshman, when Vassar made the national finals; and 24 points as a sophomore, when we won it all. We would not have done that without him. Then he pretty well carried the team the next two years, when we were a little less stellar overall. I get a little emotional thinking about it, which I know is odd.

There is a lot of luck in this game. E.g. once you get to the elite eight, you are nearly always playing someone as smart as you or smarter. Someone like Charles Smith can make you look like the smartest guy of all. I hope I find another player like him.

hey this is Swarthmore's coach....I think this year will be tough, i lose my 2 big rebounders and will have 2 frosh playing huge minutes down low. but hopefully my 2 shooters can improve their 3pt% just slightly to cover for some loss of rebounds

Hey Yanks, yeah, my thinking in touting your team was that Fernald and Rockey are likely to continue improving. And an attack like that tends to enhance the strengths of your team while minimizing the weaknesses; if those guys hit a few more threes, the rebounding won't bother you much. Either way, Swarthmore will be even stronger in season 25 (and I look forward to playing your team then and beyond, I hope).

This reminds me, does anyone else think there has been a recent tweak to off-season stamina changes? I had three or four guys lose 3-5 points. This does not appear to be related to work ethic, as one guy (Harvey) dropped five points despite a 73 WE. Maybe this is whatif's way to deal with the effectiveness of the press. Anyway, if this is the new norm, then fine, I just want to know. I might should post in the general HD forum.